I feel really bad that a semi-irrelevant player who streams a lot constantly shits up these boards with drama, but then I saw this as the first rated post and I didn't feel as bad.

I've talked to Mark a lot over the past couple days, and we've come to the decision that it'd be best for both of our relationships for me to step aside from Quantic. I really appreciate the help/support from Quantic, and everyone on it, and everything they've done for me up to this point, but I feel like I've become more of a liability than an asset to them. I'm not about to release some hollow/empty apologies that mean nothing, and I can't even guarantee that I won't let any "bigot/racist/hateful/nazi/apocalyptic" speech cross my stream again.

There were a few options on the table when we were discussing things, but all of the options left Quantic in a really rough position. The fact of the matter is, me leaving Quantic or forfeiting any sponsorship really doesn't hurt my income, or affect me, much at all. But it would be devastating to certain parts of Quantic if things continued down this road (and still might be, though there's not much that can be done at this point).

I really appreciate everything they've done for me up to this point and I don't like to stay in some place where I feel like I'm hurting the environment around me too much, so I think it'd be easier for us to separate ties. I wish all of them the best, and hope to work with them in some ways in the future.

For those that hate, continue hating, I love every second of it. For those that like to e-mail sponsors, good luck with your campaign, though it's sad that the only players you're hurting are those that don't stream and those that don't generate revenue outside of team salaries. And for those that support me, I appreciate all of you guys, too.

On the other hand, if you think they're spineless assholes who want to police bad words in a game where you're nuking/murdering/destroying other people, or games where the main character has to endure torture or murder innocent civilians (MW2), that's fine, too. :]

I'm curious about why people think it's odd that someone would get dropped from a publicly sponsored team for using hate speech (at the end of the day, that's what it is, regardless of how you feel about it).

What happened to Mel Gibson? Michael Richards? If you go around calling people niggers and gooks you're going to have a bad time. Especially when you're representing a company/team/anything. Like it or not, if you're being sponsored by a company or team, you represent them at all times in public. That's just how it works, it's part of the deal.

I'm really confused as to why anyone is surprised or outraged that someone who uses racist language with 15k viewers gets dropped like a rock.

Because this subreddit is full of hostile manchildren. Point blank, no question. Look where the upvotes are in these threads. Based on all the garbage I've seen around here I would guess the average user ranks just above the average XBox Live shithead.

Was talking with a friend about this. People seem to think that there's a magic force in the universe such that, when you're very good at starcraft, money happens at you.

It's about community/viewers and sponsors. People will only pay you to play if they think you can make them money/ goodwill. When you work as hard as Destiny to destroy goodwill, you'd better be bringing them money hand over fist.

I really hope your streaming career works out for you because in today's job market where internet searches are becoming more and more invasive your behavior is going to make it increasingly hard to find a job where you can actually make money.

When the first youtube results for you include "Baneling rape analogy" and your liquipedia entry points out your copious use of racial slurs it's going to be hard to find a company that will take the risk of hiring you. I hope you've considered this for the sake of your own future because the real world is far less forgiving of this shit than Reddit or the SC2 community.

streaming career is going down the hole the more he plays LoL. Last Summer-Fall he was averaging what? 4-8k viewers on an average day peaking at like 11-12k on really special occassions (trolling with CatZ, showmatches, etc.) and now I'm surprised when he gets back over 3k viewers (only when he's playing SC2). He rides a fat ~1.5k viewers most of the time and its because he switches over to LoL which in my opinion isn't very fun to watch (severely addicting to play though). As a side note, 1.5k viewers is more than most will ever have but I have to think that its eventually going to hurt him financially in the long run as his standard of living will slowly deteriorate (for example, dropping from 60k annual income to 30k annual income would hinder one's standard of living as luxuries are harder to come by). Theoretical numbers of course.

All I can say is that I genuinely thought you believed in your whole "racist slur and context" campaign (though I disagree with it), but after seeing you call a korean gook, it seems like you just conjured an excuse to get away with using racial slurs and other hateful language. Honestly, I know people enjoy your smack talk, but your choice of words is very distasteful, putting it lightly.

I can't say I blame Quantic, continuing to support you would do nothing but hurt their image.

Judge people for their personality, actions, skill ect... but the moment you hate on them for existing (sexuality, ethnicity, gender) you don't deserve a platform to voice such malicious content.

For instance if you don't like the idea of people emailing sponsors over racism, don't be blatantly racist to a Korean and pretend like you were totally using the word in a non racial context, because that sort of illogical shit only works on your dumb fans.

The people who are ruining things for those lil non streamers you pretend to care about are guys like you who get into the spotlight and act the way you do, not the fans who get offended

I don't even understand why he even bothers using racist or homophobic slurs given his creativity and wit. He's an articulate and intelligent guy so using such lame "xbox live" style putdowns is pretty pathetic.

Imagine if Churchill had responded to Lady Astor's cutting remark "Winston, if you were my husband I would poison your tea" with "STFU FAGGOT BITCH" instead of "Nancy, if I were you husband, I would drink it."

Korea is the biggest fish in this pond. I do not watch Destiny, never have, but if this is what was said, who could really blame them from running. Quantic needs Korea way more than Korea needs Quantic. To me it sounds like he found the true line and crossed it.

It's just sad that it has to personally hit home for people to "get it." He took little flak for saying nigger, as we have few black people in the community; he took little flak for saying faggot, because we have few gay people. Yet as soon as he says gook—and we have lots of Asians—the community gets in an uproar. I'm glad it finally happened, but it took way too long.

How many times have these same people actually emailed the sponsors to tell them they were THANKFUL to them for fostering eSports and helping it grow? Wouldn't that do A LOT more good than throwing someone under the bus just because you feel like mob-lynching someone? Why are people always so eager to jump on negative shit, yet don't bother to do the things that would actually be meaningful in terms of helping sponsorships INCREASE.

I have done that in the past to monster for sponsoring EG because I felt that the problems caused by the orb thing might have stressed their relationship so I wanted to help a bit. Its something I think more people should do especially if you support a team. Like go out and say to razor sponsoring TL is awesome or say to steelseries you love EG or Fnatic..etc.

When someone intentionally puts themselves in the spotlight, they have to accept that people will complain when they do something controversial. This happens with Rush Limbaugh, this happens with NFL players, this now happens with Starcraft 2 players. It's not new, and it's not going away.

Posted this in the other thread, but it seems, perhaps, more appropriate here:

If teams don't want people complaining direct to sponsors, then they shouldn't sign players with a known history of using offensive racial terms. Quantic had FULL knowledge of his past history with the terms, knew he was continuing to use them in the present and was well-aware of his intent to use them in the future. He's been incredibly outspoken on the topic and at no point has made any signs that he was going to slow down with the language. He's tweeted about it, discussed it openly on his stream, heck, he even went on SOTG (or some other show, I forget) and did a whole segment on it. They signed him and kept him under contract anyways.
IF they didn't want people to go to sponsors, they should have handled something they were FULLY AWARE OF internally. Period. Now, I can guarantee you, this won't happen again in the future.

First sensible thing written in this thread. The lengths that scredditors will go to in order to defend their beloved bigotry is fucking incredible. Sponsors/teams are responsible for whoever they sign. And they know perfectly well how beneficial it is for them to sponsor the "good" ones, they have all the numbers. They don't assume that because people dislike bigoted players, that they should cut ALL esports loose.

people don't realize that this was exactly what gheed was talking about when he said "i hate esports". he doesn't hate starcraft getting super popular, he hates that it's become so popular that people ride an emotional wave to ruin real people's careers over silly stuff and that their build in excuse for it was "just doin it in the name of esports cant have this stuff shitting up the community!"

I don't doubt the effectiveness of it, that's for sure, but the problem lies in that it may move these companies to not want to sponsor anything SC2 related, while Razer is an endemic sponsor so they might be better able to wrap their head around gamer culture (for lack of a better term, not that your particular attitude to language is really gamer culture) and all the spam they got might not shift their overall perspective of sponsoring SC2, the same may not be true for non-endemic sponsors.

Also, just curious, if you don't mind, do you have any idea how many people actually emailed/tweeted/etc razer?

That's exactly what they do. Marketing budgets are battlefields in companies, and when the president of a company has to deal with this shit, the politics of the company kick into play and it's up to the person who sold the idea internally to put their job on the line and fight for the budget dollars by showing a result. If the results aren't there to justify the investment at that point, that marketing director has an uphill battle to climb to fight for their job.

It's really self destructive for people to go to the sponsors first, before going to the team. We're talking about the nuclear option here, and it doesn't help the sport grow - it only serves to shrink the pot.

It's not a popular counter argument, but I'll be the one who plays devils advocate:

If we as a community are expected to tell sponsors when we like things, it's counter-intuitive to tell us to be quiet about the things we don't like. Regardless of your (note: I'm not saying your as a personal thing, it's just general :P ) opinion on the matter, it is acceptable for someone to announce their displeasure. When Rush limbaugh went on one of his rants and went to far, people spoke to the sponsors. In fact, reddit had a big campaign behind it. Why shouldn't concerned persons do the same for Starcraft?

As long as it's done tactfully (i.e. saying your displeased with one player ,not a whole team), the public display of disapproval is good.

Now, all that being said, people in the community need to practice discrepancy when going to sponsors. Is this offense worthy of voicing a complaint about a player/team? obviously that is for the individual to choose. We can certainly agree that they can be wrong. However, the community, by and large, acted on this one. Enough people must have been pissed for things to get blown up the way that they did.

So, take it for what it's worth, but I don't think contacting sponsors is necessarily bad.

When Rush limbaugh went on one of his rants and went to far, people spoke to the sponsors. In fact, reddit had a big campaign behind it. Why shouldn't concerned persons do the same for Starcraft?

Since you asked: Rush Limbaugh is not a situation we have here. Rush Limbaugh is his own man, he doesn't have a boss with meaningful creative control over the contents of the show. If Rush does something you don't like, who should you complain to? The people making his show obviously don't care, they hired him because of his controversial nature. If you don't complain to his sponsors, you have no meaningful recourse.

This isn't the case w/ SC2 players. They are all under contract with a team (the big name ones at least), and those contracts will contain clauses for things like "don't be a dick that drags down the image of our team." If they do, they can be kicked off the team, lose their salary, etc. This happens all the time anyway: Idra has been reprimanded for some of the things he said, like faggot, and general BM (SirScoots has said as much on several shows). And he has toned it down considerably because of his obligations to EG.

You offered an analogy, but here's a better one: while checking out at your grocer, the cashier is very rude to you. After leaving the store, you take it upon yourself to go to the store's vendors and insist that they no longer sell their items in the store as you explain how rude their cashiers are. No one would say that is a reasonable response. You're skipping a HUGE step: talk to the cashier's boss. Let him know about the cashier's attitude and let them deal with it.

No one is saying you can't be upset about what he said. No one is saying you can't voice your displeasure. What we are saying is you're doing it to the wrong people. Razor/steelseries/etc. don't know the context for eSports. Frankly, they don't know what a "Destiny" is. All they know is they're getting emails that they are losing sales because of money they're spending on a team, and guess what the obvious solution is: just don't spend the money! No one says they have to sponsors eSports teams and their industry has been doing just fine for decades without it. If eSports implodes tomorrow, Razor/steelseries/etc. will all be completely fine and continue on making boatloads of money. But if sponsors pull out, eSports dies. It's that simple.

So voice your displeasure to the team's management. That's where it should go. Take it to the sponsors when it's clear that the team doesn't care and you still do -- namely when you have no other option. But it's insane to think emailing Razor is a 'first step.'

I'm pretty sure a better analogy would be, say, if a football player tweeted inappropriate comments. It's the football players personal Twitter (much like a streamers stream belongs to that player), but it still reflects on the team as a whole. If the teams management takes no public action, the management could be perceived as condoning that behavior which may turn sponsors away.

yes and no the NFL is a governing body, and it has and does fine players/coaches large sums of money (and game suspensions) when they break rules like that, many sports do. Its one of the benefits to having a governing body for a sport, it allows punishment to be standardized for all players/casters and helps prevent the mess from becoming an issue with sponsors.

I'm pretty sure Rush Limbaugh is not his own man. He also works for someone - the radio station. And I'm sure he gets the same hate as Destiny. However, alot more people listen to Rush then watch Destiny's stream.

Why is it messed up? It's how things have worked in other media forever. The only difference is that sponsors of Esports are more responsive to the people who complain.

Anybody remember how Rush lost a bunch of sponsors because he called a girl a slut on his show? Same thing. People were offended and they let the people giving him money know that they weren't going to do business with them as long as they supported him.

Look at how some sponsors even dropped Tiger Woods when they weren't happy with his actions.

When a sponsor sponsors somebody, they need to look at what the person says and does closely and think about if they can take the heat from that. People who seek out sponsors need to realize that what they say will be looked at and will reflect back on the people sponsoring them and if they can't handle it they shouldn't accept the sponsorship.

This is actually a sign that esports is growing up and becoming like any other form of entertainment.

I can't see the problem. The system was not abused in any way as of now. Orb totally deserved what happened to him, even if he was just joking, if you're in a public environement, you shouldn't use words that can be taken out of context in a bad way.

What would happen if the CEO of some big company was in the street, randomly calling someone a "fucking nigger piece of shit" (or any other racist term) while people could hear him ? He would be fired ON THE SPOT. No one is forcing you to behave correctly, but you shouldn't complain when you get fired for it.

This system helps to get rid of bad behaviors, and it has been working pretty well so far.

private and public spheres are poorly defined. Both orb's and destiny's screenshots are from private, ladder games. Are those in public? Is a celebrity responsible for private conversations that gets recorded?

Now I know not everyone cares about supporting "esports", but if you do, messaging sponsors negatively is about the worst thing you can possibly do. It's probably the only thing a fan can do that actually hurts esports.

When SC2 is huge and untouchable you can go ahead and get people like Destiny fired as often as you like, but right now all you're doing is fixing a perceived "wound" with a full body cast when a simple bandaid would suffice.

What I don't understand most of all is how people think this will fix the problem of racism and homophobia. Even if you believe Destiny is a racist, all you're doing by forcing the hand of sponsors is creating friction for the problem you're trying to solve. Do you think that the people who use those racial slurs and homophobic epithets will see the error in their ways because Destiny isn't a part of Quantic anymore? It's more likely that this will just upset them, probably causing people to use those words even more often. When Orb got fired, how often did you see people using the phrase "dumb nigger risks", even if it was in jest?

You don't solve these issues by brute force. Time and experience is the only way to make people more accepting of others.

People like Destiny don't grow e-sports, what they do is splinter the community. You honestly think a sponsor wants to be associated with that?

So what should we do? We can sweep people like Destiny under the rug, pretend it never happened, and sponsors will be none the wiser. And then when someone sees destiny use a slur on his stream right next to the Razer logo they run away.

The other option is to take a stand, unify the community under a no-tolerance policy. Sponsors can be proud that their brand is associated with passionate, good, hard working people.

Time and experience? Destiny has been doing this for a few years now, and people have been on his case about it for about as long. Every time someone brings it up to him he gets worse and more entrenched in his views. He and people like him will never learn. Better to take a stand, then to wish and hope that they will change.

I honestly don't give a shit if the racists and homophobes see the error of the way. I mean, it would be nice, sure, but it's anything but my main concern. My main concern is creating an esports environment that isn't hostile and harmful to minority groups

Especially when it's the wrong sponsors. Razer sponsors Quantic, there is no personal Destiny sponsorship. If you wanted to send a message to Destiny personally, you would go after the advertisers that are shown on his stream. I'm surprised no one saw this even after analogies to the Rush Limbaugh hate speech / advertising situation came up in discussion - viewers didn't contact all of Fox's sponsors, just the ones that advertised on his show.

In general people are way too fast at criticizing and wanting to stir the pot and generate drama. It's a bad human trait - destroying things that people have built up generates more spontaneous satisfaction than creating. Quantic didn't even have a chance to respond before the contacting of sponsors happened. People demand same day results which just isn't going to happen when decisions need to be made and discussed by people all around the world. Entire drama bombs can explode when the person involved hasn't even woken up yet.

This kind of thing needs to stop if everyone is serious about promoting the game and community as a professional sport. Sure you can complain and criticize, but contact the responsible parties. Wait for an official statement. Give them time to actually prepare something. These things aren't easy to do on the spot without knowing all the facts and talking to everyone involved. Only if you are completely ignored by them do you take it to the next level, and be sure you know what you're doing when you do.

Note: These are my personal views and do not reflect the views or opinions of Team Liquid.

It looks like you're trying to justify racist comments. Your justification is that
( ) people have free speech and should be able to say whatever they want
( ) they are just words
( ) context matters
(X) everyone says racist things to some extent
( ) you're not REALLY a racist, it's just a joke and everyone should lighten up
( ) there is some kernel of truth to stereotypes
( ) others being offended is not your problem, nor your fault
( ) black people use the word nigger, so white people can too
and therefore this is not a big deal. You're wrong. Here's why you're wrong.
(One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have
too many other flaws to list here because your augment holds water like a wet paper bag.)
Specifically, you are too self-centered to understand that
( ) there is a difference between rights and duties. You have a right to be a
racist fuck, but you also have a duty to not be a racist fuck.
( ) I also have free speech and agency. I can react by being offended and
calling out your asshole behavior.
( ) words can offend people. Offending a group of people for something they
cannot change (e.g. race and sexual orientation) is not nice.
(X) people have had those racist words thrown at them previously in their life.
It's possible they have suffered physical harm while hearing those racist
words.
(X) just because some people are racist doesn't make it okay.
( ) the context is that your racism is an asshole move and insults a class of people.
Context matters for the person listening just as much.
( ) you're not making racial humor. You're not Dave Chapelle. It's racist.
He knows where the line is for acceptable humor, you apparently do not.
( ) asking someone to lighten up when they've been called that name and been
physically, economically, or emotionally hurt when the word was thrown
around isn't funny to them. There's a reason they're offended.
( ) being an asshole to an entire class of people due to stereotypes encourages
racist behavior for those that do not deserve it. Often times these
stereotypes exist due to economic or cultural reasons -- that doesn't
make it nice.
(X) offending others means they will fight back.
( ) offending others is your fault. It's your choice to offend them, but it's
also their choice to be an asshole back to you.
( ) black people can use the word nigger and gay people can use the word fag
because it is a reclaiming of an offensive word. It is an attempt to remove
the sting from the word. You have no right to use it because you're not
removing the sting, you're piling it on.
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
( ) There is a difference between saying Cracker and Nigger. One has a history
that sparks up racial hate that exists to this day. Calling someone a
cracker does not bring up the topic of systematic racism.
(X) It's not a valid argument to justify racism because other people do it.
That includes your accuser. Ad-hominem attacks don't work past 4th grade.
( ) This is not the fun police, you can offend people and be an asshole, but racism
is not nice. The difference is you are not only offending any single target
-- you are offending a whole class of people.
(X) You are communicating in a broadcast medium, other viewers/observers can be
offended.
(X) If you have a right to be an asshole, I also have a right to take action.
(X) You are not Rosa Parks fighting for majority rights.
( ) There's a difference between offending someone and offending a whole class
of people. The Merry Pranksters are fun, racism is not.
( ) You need to empathize more with others, please check with your therapist on
whether you have Aspergers.
( ) A slippery slope argument doesn't work. It's fairly obvious that calling
someone nigger or fag is not okay. We can argue about hypotheticals all day
but we are discussing a specific clear-cut example.
( ) From a utilitarian perspective, using racist remarks hurts business.
( ) Please read up on the "Invisible Backpack", your privilege is leaking out.
( ) You are not showing THE MAN, you just come off as an ignorant, provincial
jackass.
( ) Living in a society where everyone is an asshole to everyone else is no fun.
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
(X) Sorry dude, you should try to empathize with others more.
( ) You are an asshole, please GTFO.
( ) Fuck off, I hope you say that shit in public and get shot.

Seriously though, Destiny, speaking as one of your biggest fans, you're acting like you're not an active participant and had no ability to prevent people from contacting Razer, causing difficulty for (former) Quantic teammates. You should've apologized early, nobody actually cares whether you believe it or not, and stopped saying racial slurs on stream. It's kind of getting out of hand.

Great post. Also, I love how Destiny goes apeshit when someone starts with the ad hominem, yet he just put two up on his post (one being taken out of context).

Man the fuck up. You DID put your team in a rough spot. It wasn't someone else's fault, it was entirely YOURS the moment you decided to use a racist slang and then actually try to defend yourself instead of just apologizing.

What's even sadder is the top comment actually agrees with you. If people are offended and message your sponsor saying so then don't come whining about it; if you have a right to say whatever you want, people have the right to be offended.

Your behavior is not tolerated in any other sport. Why should starcraft be the exception?

Destiny, I, amongst thousands (maybe more) of others do not give two shits about you, furthermore what you say and do. However, you are conveying that language via a public medium, consequently you should expect someone to read what you said, and thus get offended from your direct actions.

Finally, do you really think any other "professional" 'sports' person would get away with that kind of behaviour. I could cite over 10 cases from all different sports where Racism is completely not tolerated in any shape or form.

You should stop acting like a fucking child and show some common decency therefore becoming a role model to the community. You are in an amazing situation of being paid for playing a video game, that 1000s of us including myself would love to be in that situation, just take a leaf out of the Korean Pro-gamers and adopt their manner.

This is kind of irrelevant...but how often do you play your saxophone, if at all?

I'm currently in a music school at a university and have seen many people stop school who are performance majors (I am not good enough to major in performance, or rather, have the drive) and I am genuinely curious if its still a daily or weekly regiment of yours to play a bit.

If you think white people shouting "gook' "nigger" and "faggot" to be the pinnacle of comedy then might I suggest you get your fix playing CoD on xbox live with all the other 15 year olds.
You don't have a god given right to use racist slurs and not be called to account by multi million dollar corporate sponsors who's products are used by those minorities, sorry.

Good riddance. Instead of posting a normal farewell-post you have to victimize yourself and call other people out even though this is all your fault but you're too dumb to take responsibility for it. That you're even slightly relevant to SC2 even though you lack skill, manner and a fucking brain is kind of a shame in itself.

I was listening to SOTG earlier and I came to realization that everyone on that show despises this community. Well, the backlash-happy part of our community. The ignorant pitchforking job-destroying part of this community. Even Chill recently made a post about it. That part of our community is making the rest of it look like shit. Ever since the reddit moderator drama it seems like people have been slowly learning that if they scream loud enough they can cause people to do whatever it is that they want. There needs to be a way for us non-asshole community members to counter act this bullshit.

TL;DR-Guys, our community is turning to shit. We need to do something about it.

We follow the same game, we interact on various message boards, we have lots of live events where we interact in person. Barcrafts are getting more and more popular, and a lot of universities now have a Startcraft 2 team.

How do you picture a real community? People who agree on everything? People who all know each other personally?

Well said. What frustrates me most is the psychoanalytic construction of Starcraft fans as an individual (i.e., in asserting the fan population has mood swings or is fickle). There are people who like Destiny and people who hate Destiny. And plenty who simply don't care. If a post attracts a lot of Destiny haters this week and a post attracts a lot of Destiny fans next week, it doesn't mean the Starcraft fan population is bipolar (in the way an individual would be). It means the Starcraft fan population is diverse and contains many opinions and perspectives (in the way a population, in many places, strewn across the globe, with no common ideology or outlook, will inevitably be).

They said that the community was mainly shit, but there's gold inbetween the shit every now and then.

We need to do something about it.

Not possible. This is an open forum with almost 100k people and to add to that, it's about a competative sport. There is no way whatsoever that that it can be drastically and permanently changed without removing at least 1 of the above.
All subreddits, and this is true for non reddit shit as well, will degrade in quality as they grow bigger if their topic is subjective. Starcraft if subjective. The size we are at now, there will be more tabloid gossip and image macros than there will be gold. If you can't live with that, I only have bad news for you. How the other subreddits have dealt with this is to make a new subreddit, like /r/truegaming, /r/games, /r/trueents and so on. This subreddit will be smaller and because a place for filler-garbage-content is already established, it'll have more of the gold. Guess what happens when it grows too big though.

So can we remove the "open forum" part? Fuck no, why even go to reddit, then? Teamliquid is a perfectly functioning closed forum. And by closed, I mean that while it's open to pretty much anyone making an account, they actively ban users, which, in theory, should remove unwanted content. If you followed the dramah lately though, you'll know that banning on TL is occationally more subjective than objective and because more mods are required to moderate more people, the quality of mods has to drop or the thoroughness with which a ban is issued has to go down. That or just less moderation, but then we're back to reddit.

I'm not saying that it's IMPOSSIBLE to make screddit better, though that's what I sound like. Just consider that as screddit grows, the quality will drop regardless. The circlejerk will only get worse and our only means to stop is through the new queue or by accepting the, in my opinion, equally bad consequences of heavy moderation.

TL;DR - All big communities gradually get worse/more circlejerkier. It can't be stopped without drastically changing the entire community itself.

The problem with this community is that so many people accept racism, sexism and homophobia, Destiny could trample a puppy to death on his stream and some of you people would be applauding.

The problem with this community is that no one has the will to take a stance, Destiny shouldn't be getting a 30 day ban, his stream should be taken off the list permanently, i want the respected players and commentators to take a stance against this.

The problem with this community is that we are still playing in kiddie pool, where we think that saying Gook is somehow funny and cool, in the world of grown ups if you call someone a Gook you are fired, instantly.

I was listening to SOTG earlier and I came to realization that everyone on that show despises this community. Well, the backlash-happy part of our community.

Sure, because if they misbehave they may be accountable for their actions, which most people dislike. If you go throwing racist slurs around at work, what you expect the consequence to be? This is just the "community" maturing and showing what isn't acceptable.

When it is just you and your friends in a room, you may say anything you wish. If it is just you playing casually, you may also say anything you wish. However, if it is part of your job and you have a cooperation who stand by your actions, and even pay for your actions, you have to behave. That's life, deal with it.

TL is making it a point to keep Destiny unfeatured during his ban. When Idra was banned for 90 days (the banned started as only 2 days...) Idra was to remained featured. Consistency? TL sure ain't got it. Double-standards plenty though.

Straight from TL's commandments "6. THOU SHALL RESPECT FORUM VETERANS" -"All other things being equal, we will give preferential treatment to site members who have been with us longer (as reflected in their post count + length of time with us as a registered member). It's a simple recognition of the quality of these people. Longevity and contribution are prized commodities around here. In a similar vein, "known" pro/semi-pro players will also be treated with deference (yes, quite a few hang out here). Don't complain - these guys have earned it."
TL has never once attempted to promote themselves as consistent, Jinro and Nony can say what ever the fuck they want with no repercussion, its their site.

Note: I don't speak for the official position of TL, and I wasn't involved with the decision to de-list Destiny's stream.

What should TL do with a high profile stream when the streamer is banned? It's my opinion that any single blanket policy on that issue would be inadequate. Those situations are really rare (it's happened twice, I guess, in TL's history), and TL should be allowed to treat each case separately. I guess what you would call "double-standards," I would call "looking at each case thoroughly." And the cases are looked at thoroughly.

Implicit in your post is the idea that the respective stream statuses of Idra and Destiny were treated differently for a specific reason. Can you explain what you believe that reason was?

I'm late to the party so this is likely to get buried, but whatever - it's important enough to make a note of.

IIRC, there were several different circumstances when Idra was banned. Not hours before, Idra had some sort of viewership scheme where if he gets X viewers he'd do something like a week of first person commentary or something along those lines. Basically, it was something that would have been a significant contribution besides just standard streaming.

I believe that Idra's stream was still allowed to be featured in part due to this unusual event, so as to prevent him from reneging on this promise despite the ban, and to ensure that fans were aware that this educational event was still going on. The point here is that Idra was contributing to the TL/SC2 community overall, and TL didn't want to take that away from the community.

"But wait," you ask, "doesn't Destiny's stream educate and contribute to the community?" Only about the same amount as any other grandmasters stream that also does occasional coaching lessons - basically stuff he'd be doing anyway, regardless of whether he was featured on TL or not. Destiny has done a LOT of good stuff in general, so of course it counts for something - it's why he wasn't permabanned like he would have been if he were some 10 post kid and had used the same language. But, in general, none of his contribution has been primarily in relation to TL specifically as players like Idra or Nony have done in the past.

So if he doesn't contribute directly to TL (which is part of, but not synonymous to the greater SC2 community), why should TL treat him the same as Idra, who has contributed? Not for SC2, not for ESPORTS, but for the Teamliquid.net community? There's more at work here than just popularity and stream numbers; it's being part of the community and doing stuff for said community that earns you preferential treatment. TL is not some sort of objective arbitrator in the SC2 community and really, why should you expect it to be when it openly acknowledges that it has this bias?

Of course as SC2 gets bigger and if TL remains the undisputed champion of ESPORTS communities, there will be a point in time where it'll be much harder to determine what any arbitrary act of good is done for specifically TL, or for SC2, or for ESPORTS in general. But that day hasn't come yet, so that discussion can be saved for then.

Cant believe that people in here are defending him. Calling a Korean gook does not represent the proper use of free speech. Jesus christ people its just fucking racism/bigotry and I don't want this guy representing starcraft on ANY TEAM

It's adorable how you bring up a single PM with the word "retarded" in it to paint yourself as unfairly treated. Because that's obviously the same as sexually harassing women on stream and frequently slinging racial and homophobic slurs at people -- and then defending it afterwards.

It wouldn't be a destiny apology thread if he didn't throw other people under the bus to try and make himself look like a victim.

IdrA wasn't even making fun of loverip for being molested, he was just poking fun at the fact that the WeRRa clan was known for doing 1 base all-ins and the clan was disbanding.

The only possible connection between the two is that the accusations of molestation from loverip and rain were what lead to most of WeRRa's prominent members to leave the clan, leaving Cella with the choice to rebuild or not. Again, that connection shouldn't automatically be assumed because as far as I remember, those things were just accusations.

Isn't it ironic that Destiny - a person known for his statements on noting and paying attention to context - is taking a quote of Idra's out of context to make it look like something it clearly isn't?

I remember that thread - there's seriously no way you could possibly have interpreted it that way. Especially if you'd been watching Idra's stream and noted that, in fact, pretty much any time he came up against a player from Werra he got all-in'd.

Too easy... if you wan't to stand your ground, that you should be able to insult anyone in any way you please, why waste your breath talking about how people shouldn't write about that to a sponsor...? if you wan't to be the rosa parks of verbal abuse, why don't you have the guts to be it to the companies? :/

You people do realize that every time Destiny used racist/homophobic language while on Quantic he wasn't only risking his own career (because it's the internet, who knows who's going to see that shit and complain), he was also risking the careers of anyone on a team represented by the same sponsors Quantic had, which I believe includes EG. His refusal to act like most human beings can in front of 4k people (ie: not saying racist things) had the potential to ruin the careers of multiple players, not just his own. I hope he realizes just how selfish he is/was being.

Seriously, though--how could you call someone a gook? I mean, as mad as I've ever been, nothing like that has ever crossed my mind. I feel like that sort of thing does not come out by accident, or "in the heat of the moment." Not saying you're racist, but you thought about saying gook, and then made the decision to say it.

Its a shame I really thought you being on a team and improving was great. Ive followed your stream for a very long time and I think a lot of us still root for you. Although I don't really agree with some of the words used I would never want to have anyone lose their job for anything really bad (well this is kinda a semi job you said it doesn't really effect your income but its still a team and you probably got good benefits from that).

That being said I thought that there was not as bad a response from the community as from the Orb incident we all know your views on using words like that and im very surprised that its come to this.

Destiny, I think it is naïve to expect people wouldn’t complain to sponsors.

Personally I find those words hateful, particularly faggot, but if you choose to use them, that is certainly your right.

But I hope you understand the following, as from your posts I’m not too sure.

The StarCraft audience is becoming more and more diverse, with the % proportion of hardcore players becoming smaller. The language you choose to publicly use on stream would not be tolerated in sports due to the audience of those sports. Our audience in SC2 is moving towards the make-up of real world sports. It may or may not be right to voice concerns to sponsors (not what I am discussing here) but it is to be expected the more diverse the audience becomes. This is why people should stop telling the community to be so ‘thin skinned’. It is a natural progression. Here in the UK, Premiership football commentators have resigned following being deemed sexist on and off air – and this does have some additional relevance, I remember reading there have been discussions with MLG and big money from a company behind the UK Barclays Premiership.

Because of (1.) it becomes immediately clear that it is not good business sense to use those words. If you want to be as successful as possible you should be willing to recognise and remove offensive words from your vocabulary. You are an intelligent man, I find your quick retorts to people very funny – not when they use hateful words, but when they are intelligent.

It seems from your posts that you feel you are ‘reclaiming’ these words, and therefore ‘sticking it to the man’ by continuing to use them. The flaw in this argument (if it is your argument) is you can’t reclaim a hate word but using it in a hateful context. Hateful is a strong word for BM, but what I mean is you are using it in it’s current negative use. That’s not reclaiming, that’s telling the world to stop being offended by the offensive.

It's nice of you to think of how your stay might impact on Quantic, but it makes me wonder why you can't think of how your words might impact on people who might be sensitive to them. I also don't think you are right in bringing up isolated anecdotes of other people to strengthen your argument. Not only is this a childish tactic which only reinforces the notion that you are an immature adult, but these anecdotes are in far less number and severity than is your incessant use of offensive language, so it is not at all a fair comparison (and one of them is even a private message, how that is remotely relevant to one's public image is beyond me).

Furthermore the difference between this and the 'nuking/murdering/destroying' in video games is quite clearly the discriminatory nature of the terms you use. When you use words such as 'rape' or 'gook' you are targeting a particular demographic which makes them especially offensive within certain contexts (e.g. people who have been raped, asians who have been racially discriminated against).

Most importantly though I don't think you should be deciding for others what they find offensive, the whole idea behind offense is that it is uncontrollable since nobody wants to feel offended, and whether you mean what you say or not the words can only be interpreted as words. As someone I forget once said, 'people don't communicate, communication communicates', people can only understand what a person says by the words that they say, and those words have particular social meanings whether you agree with them or not. So in my opinion it is in your interest to be sensitive to this distinction if you want to be taken seriously.

EDIT: To those down-voting, thanks for contributing to this discussion.

I really dislike the whole situation with TL and Destiny, I think anyone reading this right now dislikes the situation to some extent, even if you think that Destiny is 100% wrong, the way it's being handled is inconsistent to many of the ways that other similar matters were handled at TeamLiquid, and it doesn't take a 'fan' of Destiny to see the problem with this.

If there is one thing that I've seen socially occur in the last few years, it's inconsistency. People lose their nerve when they have an opinion that might be 'unpopular' or 'socially incorrect' and they adjust it to be more crowd pleasing. If there is one thing to respect Destiny on, it's his consistency. When I hear him talk about his opinions on something, I know that this is what he truly believes, I know that this is not something that will change when the heat gets turned on. I agree with Destiny on a lot of things that he says, but even if I don't, I respect his viewpoints because he thinks and truly means what he says.

If there is one thing in this life that I hate, it's people that put on the big boy pants and get offended at things that have no bearing to them whatsoever. When people were all getting their 'jimmies rustled' over Destiny using some colorful language, people were dying of hunger. When people were busy wagging their finger at Destiny for getting drunk on stream, people were being tortured for what they believe in. I know this is a community about STARCRAFT, but people, when your day consists of watching a stream of Steven playing some Starcraft II, and you see the word "gook" on stream and you take the time to take a screenshot and post it somewhere to draw attention to this, over all of the other REAL things happening on this earth, because somehow it directly offends you, YOU NEED TO REEVALUATE YOUR VALUES.

I wish you nothing but success and happiness in life, Steven. I haven't really ever used chat, save for the last two months or so, but I've really enjoyed the 'community' that has kind of formed in your chat. Your viewer interaction is still top notch, and your sense of humor is always spot on for me. Play whatever game you want, if you want to do speed runs of Metro 2033, I'll still support you, regardless of what happens to 'Destiny' in the future.

I agree with Destiny on a lot of things that he says, but even if I don't, I respect his viewpoints because he thinks and truly means what he says.

Just because someone belives what he says does not make them automaticly respectable. I'm all for free speak, but I will NEVER respect radical Neonazis for believing and truely meaning their ideologie.

Now I don't say that Destiny is in anyway comparable with such people, but he still has some tendencies to attack people based on their existence, which I can't respect. For example

Calling a asian sounding player gook

Calling a mod cunt because he thinks he was female.

He is a intelligent guy which knows a lot of swear words. But in this cases he used the word which attacks the ethnicity and the gender of the person. Sorry but I don't belive this words were choosen randomly without considering the ethnicity or the gender of the person, because male people would not feel directly insulted by "bitch" nor non-asians by "gook".

But even with that in mind I really disagree with contacting sponsors on a whim, let the Team handle it first. So you're right I'm not really happy with this outcome.

I think for a lot of people it wasn't on a whim. I think for a lot of people, seeing his vigorous Destiny style defense (flaming people) of racist language on TL was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If this is the case, I find it amusing because he was the one that brought attention to the TL thing with his 'Real Talk' post. Nobody can argue that he wasn't the only one responsible for his undoing.

Someone who uses casual hate speech shouldn't shirk the consequence of being seen as someone who uses hate speech casually. Out of the thousands there will be people who will be hurt and it's not up to us whether or not their pain is worthy or not.

Even if it happens that no one was, in our perfect judgment, legitimately hurt, and it's just "haters" who catch the worst possible moment, it would have only been a matter of time.

"Reevaluate your values" is just rank hypocrisy, though. I'm guessing you don't go around calling the people you love and care about the most bitch cunt niggers who love a good ass rape. But if it "somehow it directly offends [them], [they] need to reevaluate [their] values" -- right? Of course not.

The story would be different if Destiny openly announced his speech is racist/misogynist/whateverist. There are comedians that preface their racist jokes with "My jokes are racist because racism is funny." Then you know what you're getting into. He doesn't, and in the context of streamers, he stands out--in all the wrong ways, for companies wanting to market peripherals. Apparently.

I see you seem to have put some effort and thought into this post. As you know, this is morally reprehensible because there are people who are being oppressed, tortured, and killed who all matter much more than anything SC2 related. Please unsubscribe from this subreddit, delete your account, uninstall every video game or other non-productive thing you enjoy on your computer and devote your life to helping those less fortunate than you.

...or, you know, you could admit that this is an issue that obviously a significant number of people care about, you included. Maybe it's not so bad to speak up when something you care about looks to be headed in a bad direction, whichever way that may be?

That same argument can be expanded for absolutely anything. However, I will semi agree with you and say that if a streamer is using racial slurs/being offensive then you have no obligation to continue to watch them.

I find the whole thing funny because in a micro way it resembles the whole Limbaugh thing. Both shout hate speech and lose sponsors. The big difference is that Destiny's opinions aren't significant beyond a small community.

Just like redditequte, no one seems to read TL's commandements "All other things being equal, we will give preferential treatment to site members who have been with us longer (as reflected in their post count + length of time with us as a registered member). It's a simple recognition of the quality of these people. Longevity and contribution are prized commodities around here. In a similar vein, "known" pro/semi-pro players will also be treated with deference (yes, quite a few hang out here). Don't complain - these guys have earned it."

I don't think you're a bad person, Destiny. I do think that you're not a very bright one, though. Don't pass blame on the fact that what you did would get anyone fired at any workplace (and for good reason). Don't look at this as your own time; look at this as your work time in front of customers. You think any job would tolerate you spewing racist shit in front of customers? Especially when it has nothing to do with your job.

Also, throwing others under the bus just puts on display again that you're not a very bright person. Let them get theirs if the roulette hits them; trying to get them in trouble as well just makes you look like a brat who can't own up to their own issues and has to try and drag in others. This will only hurt you in the long run because others will know that they can't trust you and that you'll just throw them out to burn to save your own skin.

And this whole thing comes up on the heels of the same thing happening with someone else. In fact, it would seem that you wanted this to happen on some level because I remember you recently (in the past week or two?) ranting about it on your stream. What makes you think this is okay? This isn't about free speech. You're not being arrested for what you've said; you're facing the other side of free speach, though: responsibility for what you say. But you're trying to avoid even that and trying to pass the blame to others. If someone else is to blame, it's not the people complaining but more likely a relative, childhood friend, or maybe childhood bully. Deal with that and get it out of you because you're a good person otherwise and not nearly as bad as you advertise yourself to be.

I don't think you're a bad person, but I also don't think you're very bright. I don't hate you, I feel bad for you. Get help...let others help you.

If he was on Twitch, being unlisted from TL wouldn't impact him so much. People go to Twitch to look for SC2 players. People go to own3d to look for LoL players (although now that TSM switched to Twitch it might be even worse for own3d). It's much easier to get viewers on Twitch than own3d without TL being involved.

"Well, I made the grownup decision and left Quantic a a hero so my continued bullshit doesn't cause assholes on reddit/TL to call the sponsors. This is your fault community. I'm still going to make money of this video game Dbags roflcopter. Also, remember, there are other people whom I dislike that are using hate speech, make sure to get them too. Or are you inconsistent dumbasses?!?!"

At first, I felt bad that you left quantic, but then I saw this post -- something a 15 year old might write when he felt his parents punished him when his sister was getting away with the same stuff. Don't really feel bad anymore.

Hope all continues to be well for you broseph, would love it if you could tweet when you're going live from now on to catch you.
Any plans on joining a new team or at this point in time do you prefer to just be streaming for revenue and such.
Still going to be at MLG?

You lack even an ounce of professionalism. Imagine if a professional tennis player started hurling racial across the net during a match, refused to apologize and even went as far as to attempt to JUSTIFY it. His career would be OVER, no do overs. eSports will never manage to gain legitimacy while the community as a whole seems to support your kind of bullshit. Teams should know they can't stand by and allow one of their members (who represent them) to do shit like this and get away with it.

Frankly I'm ashamed TL has not permabanned you and that own3d continues to allow you be one of their partners. I will be sending an email to own3d about this and hope that eventually the pile of emails they must have tips the balance and they stop supporting you.

To be fair, friend, those are examples of fictional violence. I hate when politicians use the fictional violence in games to support hurting gaming or censorship, but it goes both ways. Fictional is fictional and doesn't really have much to do with hateful speech.

If you were a BF3 player and listened all day to characters shout "cunt" "cocksucker" and "I'm getting my shit pushed in here!" then you'd have a very good point.

Do you feel that a re-branding of yourself is required now you don't have the support of a team?

The days of 6k viewers because you're playing mass queens seems to be a distant memory now. Do you intend on reaching those great heights again by going back to a proven strategy, or are you happy with how things are now?

Sorry for such an "Asshole reporter" style question. Sincerely not how I intended it to come out. I've been a fan for a long time, and hope you're able to continue your success, feed your child, and keep doing what you love.

You say leaving Quantic really doesn't affect you that much, but didn't they send you to korea, homestory cup, and other competitions you probably wouldnt have gone to normally on your own? Are you still planning on attending most competitions?